It Takes All Kinds to Make a World
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Takes place two years before Season 1. Coach Taylor has a surprise visitor.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Sorry, but I'm a bit stuck with "Brotherhood" at the moment and not sure when I will return to it. In the meantime, I am re-posting a story I worked on long ago with **SurlyCoach** that I thought was in the archives under her name, but it is not. I think it was posted at some point, but maybe not. So here it is…for first time reading or re-reading.

 **Chapter One**

Coach Eric Taylor stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a hand against each shoulder of his blue Dillon Panthers jacket, shaking his head. "Jason," he hollered. "Nah, not like that, son." He sighed as the freshman approached. Eric was Dillon High's JV coach, and he was hoping to make head coach of the varsity team one day. Jason Street was supposed to be his golden ticket. He'd coached the kid up all the way from Pee Wee, had followed him when the Streets moved from Odessa to Dillon, and yet the kid was not performing today. "What's going on, son? Your head is off somewhere."

"Yeah, I just…there's this girl."

"Lyla," Coach Taylor said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Jason said with surprise. "How did you know?"

"I have eyes, son. And ears."

He knew about Lyla. He'd seen her hanging out around the bleachers watching Jason, and she was in one of the two American History classes they were making him teach this year.

"Well, we just started dating and - "

Coach Taylor sighed. "- and what's the problem, exactly?"

"No problem. I just can't stop thinking about her."

"Son, don't bring romance onto this field. That's for your own time, you understand?" Jason nodded and Coach Taylor slapped him on the back. "Get back out there."

Coach Peterson, the head varsity coach, drew up next to him. "You got that under control, Eric?"

"Yes, sir," he muttered. Eric didn't care for his boss much. The man thought he was right about everything, didn't listen to the opinions of his assistant coaches, and hadn't wanted Eric brought on the team in the first place. He had wanted Jason Street, though, and Coach Taylor was part of the package.

"I hope you do, because our first game's this Friday."

As if Eric didn't know that. As if he hadn't been going over plays in his head every night until midnight while Tami slept peacefully beside him. "Yes, sir."

"And sometimes I wonder, Eric, if—hell-oooo there. She's a fine one."

Eric turned to see who Coach Peterson was talking about and prayed to God it wasn't one of the cheerleaders. The man had already made a few questionable comments that, had they been overheard…of course, if Peterson _did_ trip himself up that might mean the head coaching position would open up a little sooner.

Peterson had a good three years until retirement, and Eric didn't want to spend another three years as JV coach. He couldn't pay the mortgage on just a JV coach's salary, and he had to teach all those damn classes. The two P.E. classes were okay - he used them to train his boys. He could tolerate his history classes. It was the health and driver's ed he couldn't stand. He could say goodbye to all that when they made him head coach. And he'd be calling the shots. He'd prove his dad wrong, too, who had said he would never make a career out of football once he failed to get in the NFL. More importantly, he'd do Tami proud, and he _wanted_ to do her proud, because she'd believed in him, followed him around to the better division schools, put her career on a temporary shelf, told him he could do what his father said he never could – be a head coach of a major Texas high school one day.

Eric turned to see the object of Peterson's admiration. It wasn't a teenage girl. It was a young woman in jeans, hiking boots, and a tight red sweater. Her raven hair fell halfway down her back and her piercing blue eyes smiled as she walked straight for the sidelines.

"Mhmmm. Good Lord, yes. That is one good-looking woman," Coach Peterson murmured beside him. "How old do you think she is? She's legal, right? She's got to be _at least_ twenty-one."

Eric could feel every muscle in his body tense, and through closed teeth he said, "She's twenty-six."

When the woman arrived she threw open her arms and Eric smiled and hugged her tight. "Angie, what are you doing here? I thought you had another six months before they let you out."

"Let her out?" Coach Peterson asked. "You kill someone, darling?"

Eric pulled away and glared at Peterson. "This is my sister. Angela. She's been in the Peace Corps."

Coach Peterson let out a long, hard laugh. " _You_ have a baby sister in the _Peace Corps_?" He shook his head. "Wonders will never cease." He kept shaking his head and laughing as he disappeared down the field.


	2. Chapter 2

Julie sat on the stool with her elbows on the kitchen bar. "I totally want to be in the Peace Corps like you one day, Aunt Angie." Her aunt was standing beside her with both palms down on the countertop.

" _After_ you finish college," Tami insisted as she turned on the stove in the adjacent open kitchen.

" _After_ you make your first half a million," Eric said, grabbing an apple from a bowl of fruit that was sitting on the bar and tossing the Golden Delicious in the air and catching it. "My baby sister here lives on Ramen noodles."

"You know I would never _touch_ Ramen noodles," Angie replied. "I eat only meals cooked from scratch from whole, organic foods."

Tami looked down into the pot she was stirring and then over at Angie.

"Except when I'm a guest at someone's house!" Angie hastened. "Then I happily eat whatever I'm served. And you're a great cook, Tami."

"You've never eaten my cooking," Tami observed as she tapped the spoon against the rim to clean off the excess before laying it on the counter. When Tami graduated from high school, Angela was just in fourth grade. After marrying Eric, Tami saw her sister-in-law on the occasional holiday or family visit, but once Angie herself went to college, the girl basically fell off the charts. She e-mailed and called her brother, but today was the first time she'd set foot in Texas in years.

"Well I'm just assuming, Tami," Angie said, "because you're great at everything you do."

Tami smiled. "I see smooth tongues run in the family."

Angie turned her head toward Julie. "I live simply, but I _don't_ live on Ramen noodles, whatever your father claims."

"I'm totally into organic foods too," Julie said. "I can't get Dad to spend the money though."

"All foods are organic by definition," Eric said. "I don't eat rocks."

Julie let out an exasperated sigh. "You _know_ what I mean, Dad."

Angie looked over the counter at Eric, who was now polishing the apple against his sleeve. "It wouldn't kill you to buy local, though," she said.

"I hear they eat organic baby seal over in Lithuania," he replied. "I'm told they club it to death right in front of the mother. They say the trauma makes it especially tender and delicious. Have you had any yet? You've been there what, two years now?"

"I was in Latvia, not Lithuania," Angie answered. "I go to Nambia next."

"Aren't you done with your Peace Corps sentence?" Eric asked just before he took a bite of the apple.

Tami walked around the bar and began setting the table.

"I'm going with Doctors without Borders this time," Angie answered. "As a nurse. You know, finally putting that nursing degree to use the way Dad keeps saying I should."

Eric chuckled. "Well I don't think _that's_ what he had in mind."

As Tami passed back into the kitchen and began taking the bread out of the oven, Angie said to Eric, "Are you just going to let her do all the work? Seriously, you're just going to stand there and let your wife wait on you?"

"She likes to wait on me."

Tami gave Eric a slow glare but then said to Angie, "I actually don't mind cooking for my family. It's not like Eric doesn't work all day and then some. Just because we have somewhat traditional roles doesn't mean I'm subjugated."

Eric winced in his sister's direction, and Angie said, "Geez, Tami, I didn't mean to insult you. I was just teasing my brother."

"You didn't insult me," she insisted.

"You kind of sounded insulted, Mom," Julie told her. "A little bit."

"A little bit," Eric agreed, and then bit into his apple again.


	3. Chapter 3

Tami got Angie set up in the guest bedroom. "How long are you in town for?" she asked as she handed her a set of clean towels for the morning.

Angie shrugged. "I have three months before I go on to Nambia. I haven't decided yet how I'm going to spend all of that time."

Tami just looked at her for a moment, but Angie didn't provide any more details. It was a little rude, Tami thought, not to tell your host how long you planned to stay under her roof. "Well, if you need anything, you just let me know. Eric is usually up around six-thirty in the morning to get ready for work. Julie rolls out of bed a little later. I'm up at six."

"Why so early?" Angie asked, "if you don't have a job to get to?"

"I have plenty of work to do."

"I wasn't suggesting you didn't, I just…I…" Angie patted the towels. "These are really soft. You must use a really good fabric softener." She set the towels on the dresser. "Y'all have a nice house."

"I'm working on my master's in administration," Tami said. "I was six credits away when we moved to Dillon, so I'm finishing that up online."

"Administration?" Angie asked. "I thought you used to work as a counselor?"

"I have a lot of interests," Tami said. "Just like you. And of course I have the house to tend to, and I volunteer for the PTA over at Julie's junior high. We're putting together a fundraiser, trying to get equipment for a science lab."

"The school doesn't supply that?"

"Well, sports are king here in Dillon, especially football. Sometimes the arts and sciences take a back a seat."

"That's a shame. I hate how narrow small town Texas can be. I was so glad to get out when I did." Angie made a face as if perhaps she'd realized how offensive her words might sound.

"I suppose Latvia is less provincial?" Tami asked.

"No. Of course not. People were just as provincial where I served. It was just a different…it was different for _me_."

"Well, it's good for Eric, here. His team gets a lot of resources, and he gets a chance to work his way up to head coach. That's why we're here after all, for his job."

Angie nodded.

"And you meet a lot of interesting people in a town like this," Tami continued, "all races, all classes, all walks of life – all forced to interact with each other. Everybody knows everybody, so it's not as easy as it is in a city to form your own enclave and put your wall up. Some of the most provincial people I ever met were when we lived in Austin."

"You telling her you wish we could move back to Austin?" Eric asked as he leaned against the open doorframe.

"No," Angie told him. "She was telling me that small town people are more enlightened than city folk."

"Like hell she was," Eric said.

"That's not _quite_ what I meant," Tami muttered.

Eric looked from Tami to his sister, and his expression made Tami wonder if her tone had sounded a little short.

"You have a good night, Angie." Tami put an excess of cheerfulness into her voice. "I'm turning in early." She kissed Eric's cheek.

"Want company?" he whispered.

"You don't see your sister often. Keep her company."

"Wait up for me?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"No promises." She slipped past him and into the hall.

[*]

Eric coughed and spluttered. "How can you drink this?" he asked, handing Angie back the bottle of vodka she'd given him to try. They were sitting on the back porch, in folding deck chairs, and it was clear he needed to mow the lawn. He never did stay on top of that during football season. "That burns worse than the moonshine Billy Joe Daniels used to make when we lived in Midland."

"I wouldn't remember that. I was eight." Angie took a swig out of the bottle.

"When did you become such a hard drinker?"

She set the bottle down on the back porch and shoved her hands in the long pocket of her NYU sweatshirt. It was mid-October, and west Texas was having a fickle fall. Some nights were 45 degrees, while others were 65. "They drink it like water where I worked in Latvia. You get used to it."

"You become a lush while you were there?"

"I've still got at least half of my liver. I didn't start drinking regularly at sixteen like Mark. And I have _never_ driven drunk."

Eric winced.

"Sorry." She sighed. "You miss him still?"

"Do you?"

"Eric, I was only six when he died. He went to college when I was three. I never really knew him. But I guess he was like…a big brother to you."

"He _was_ my big brother. He was yours too."

"Yeah, I know," Angie said. "I just mean, you two did actual brother stuff together."

"I don't know about that. He tossed me the ball some. He drove me to my Pee Wee practices after Mom died. Dad couldn't get me to them, with his work hours."

Angie shook her head. "Well, I just thank God you weren't in the car with him _that_ night."

Mark had been in his junior year of college, and he'd just declared his early eligibility for the NFL draft. He was considered one of the top five college linebackers in the country, and everyone expected him to be drafted in the first round. But a couple of weeks before draft day rolled around, he'd gotten behind the wheel of a car – drunk.

The call had reached the Taylor household at midnight. Eric was awake, studying for a history test he'd forgotten about until that evening because he'd been so preoccupied trying to memorize the playbook. He was going to be moved up to varsity next season, when he would be a sophomore, and he was nervous as hell about spring training. He'd been the one to hear the news first, from one of Mark's A&M teammates.

The worst part wasn't hearing that his brother was dead, however. The worst part was having to tell his father. "Well, Dad wished _I_ was in that car," Eric said.

"That's not true," Angie insisted.

"Instead of Mark, I mean. You know he does."

"Surely you're over your daddy issues by now?"

"Are you?"

"Eighty percent at least," Angie said, and Eric laughed.

"What's your plan for tomorrow?" he asked. "Because I'll high tail it out of practice as soon as I can, but I can't be home before five."

"Thought I'd go to the Dillon History Museum."

"You know it's just some guy's house, right?" Eric chuckled.

"What do you mean?"

"He put up a few exhibits in his living room and dining room. Some paintings and letters and, like, six cowboy hats."

"There are cowboys in Dillon?" Angie asked.

"I guess there were at one time. It's a sad affair. Tami made me go when we first moved here. She was a little creeped out when she saw it was some guy's house, but she'd been insisting we go all week long, so I made her spend an hour there."

"You did not!"

Eric grinned. "Made her read every single letter. Word for word."

"Well, is the proprietor cute?"

"He's seventy."

Angie sighed.

"And you don't need to be worrying about cute guys anyway. You've got your future medical work in Namby to think about."

"Nambia," Angie corrected him. "It's in Africa."

"I know where it is."

"Eric, what would you do if I ever _did_ introduce you to a serious guy?"

"A _serious guy_ , or a guy you were _serious about_?"

"You knew damn well what I meant," she told him.

"Well, I guess I'd have to interview him. See if he met with my approval."

Angie chuckled. "And if he didn't? Would you put up with him as gracefully as Tami puts up with me?"

"What are you talking about?" Eric asked.

"You know what I'm talking about. Your wife doesn't like me."

"Tami likes you just fine." He stood. "I better get to bed."

"I wanted to talk to you some more."

"Look, if I'm going to have any chance of getting laid tonight, I have to be to bed by midnight."

"Does Tami turn into a pumpkin at midnight?" she asked.

"She turns into something anyway."

"Fine then," Angie said. "I'll talk to you about it tomorrow."

"A'ight." He reached for the sliding glass door. "Talk to me about what?"

"Nothing important. We'll talk tomorrow. Go get laid. I promise not to cock block you this time, like I did when you were in high school." She smirked. "Actually, you were pretty good at cock blocking yourself."

"Angie, you've got to clean up that mouth. That's not ladylike."

She uncorked her bottle of vodka. "Like this?" She took a swig.

He shook his head. "Ain't no alcohol strong enough to clean that mouth." He reached over and ruffled her hair.

She squirmed away. "I always hated it when you did that. That's why I started putting my hair in a pony tail in third grade."

"Sleep tight," he told her and slipped inside.


	4. Chapter 4

Tami put down her book when Eric eased into bed and propped himself in a sitting position against the headboard. He appeared to be thinking, and not about sex, as she had expected he would be when he came to bed. He seemed concerned.

Tami took off her reading glasses and set them on top of her book. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"I was just wondering…Why were you so sensitive about everything my sister said all evening?"

"I wasn't sensitive," Tami insisted.

"Yeah, babe, you _were_."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, just because I don't run around to Nambia and Latvia and Whateveria all the time feeding the poor and nursing the sick doesn't mean what I do isn't valuable."

He turned his neck to shoot her a semi-scolding look. "She didn't suggest that."

"She _thinks_ it."

"She does not, Tami."

"She probably does. And Julie certainly does. Did you see how in awe she was of your sister?" Tami mocked her daughter's excited voice, "'I can't wait to be just like you, Aunt Angie! Oooh….Where can I get those hiking boots?' Hiking boots, Eric! Like she needs those in the flats of Dillon, Texas! What is that?"

Eric laughed. "Are you jealous? Of my baby sister? Of _Angela_? The black sheep of the family?"

She pulled up the blanket because she just had the sheet on at the moment. "I thought _you_ were the black sheep of the family."

"Well, we _all_ disappointed my father. Except maybe Mark, but only because he didn't live long enough to." He clenched his teeth and swallowed.

"Oh, honey." Tami put her arms around him and pulled his head down against her chest. Tami had never met Mark. Eric had come into her life after his brother's death. He hadn't even mentioned Mark until they'd been dating for a while.

The first time Tami and Eric had sex, in a tent by the lake, they ended up talking into the early morning hours, huddled together, naked, in his sleeping bag. Tami learned a hundred things about Eric Taylor that night. It was if he had undressed not just his body, but his soul.

He'd talked about his mother, who had died of cancer when he was in fifth grade, and how ashamed he was that he hadn't been able to say more to her toward the end. He talked about the blow that had followed just a few years later, when they got the phone call from Mark's roommate at A&M, and how he felt his father loved Mark more than him.

He'd said a lot that night, but he hadn't said a lot about his family since. Eric hardly ever mentioned Mark. "Sugar," Tami said now, "I know how—"

"-Anyway, Julie's in seventh grade," he changed the subject rapidly and pulled away from her to lean against the headboard. "All that trekking around the world nonsense seems romantic to her right now. She doesn't have any concept of how hard it is just to build and maintain a family. She doesn't appreciate how much work you do behind the scenes to make her life run smoothly and to make sure she turns out to be the best woman she can possibly be." He pulled Tami to his chest. "And _I_ value you. I value everything you do around here. I couldn't have made it to the Panthers without you. Hell, I couldn't even manage to find my shoes without you."

She laughed and snuggled in. "Oh, I certainly hope you could manage to find your shoes. Grown men should be able to find their shoes. It's not very sexy when they can't."

"A'ight. You know what I mean. I value you. You're doing great work here, making this home for me and Julie, and for you, for all of us. Your work is more important than mine."

She snorted. "You don't believe that for a second."

"Of course I do." He kissed her. "This is where it all starts—everything worth living for." He kissed her again. "Right here."

Between kisses, she murmured, "Keep talking, Coach Taylor. Keep talking."


	5. Chapter 5

"Broby, where do you keep the flour?" Angie hollered from the kitchen as she opened yet another cabinet. "I'm making pancakes this morning."

Julie, who was paging through a science text book at the kitchen table, looked at her father, who was sitting across from her and reading the _Sports_ section. "Broby? **_Broby_?** "

"She couldn't say brother when she was little," he muttered. "And it kind of stuck."

"Okay, Broby," Julie said with a smirk.

He folded his paper, lay it down on the table, and pointed a finger at her. "You're not allowed." He rose and walked into the kitchen, and just as Angie opened another door and was about to close it, he said, "There's Bisquick right there."

"I was thinking more along the lines of _real_ flour."

He leaned against the counter. "Don't complain about what we stock in our pantry."

"I was just—"

"-And don't fix breakfast. Let Tami do that when she gets out of the shower. And tell her you're impressed at how well she does it."

"I'm always polite to your wife, Eric."

"Well, be even more polite."

Angie's brow furrowed. "What's this about?"

He stepped a little closer to her, and in a low, confidential tone said, "She kind of feels…you know…you blowing into town…talking about all your adventures…" He sighed. "It hasn't been easy for her, supporting me in my career, and –"

"—Well maybe you shouldn't have asked her to."

His mouth fell open and then closed. "Well I didn't _ask_ her to exactly. She made that choice. I mean, I told her what I'd _prefer_."

"And you'd prefer to be waited on hand and foot by a pretty woman who's always available when you want her."

He stood up straight. "Now wait a minute!" From the table on the other side of the bar, Julie looked up. "Jules," he told her. "You're still in your PJs. Go get ready for school."

Julie shut her textbook, sighed, and obeyed, disappearing from the breakfast nook.

Eric lowered his voice. "Tami's not like that, and neither am I. I didn't think you thought like that about us. She's a strong, intelligent woman, and I respect all that about her. I didn't invite you to stay here so you could walk around judging us."

Angie looked at him with soft, penitent blue eyes. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was wrong. I apologize." She smiled. "Remember when Dad used to make you say that to me every time I got upset at you?"

"Yeah. Just me though. He never made _you_ say it. Even though your were the one who was wrong half the time."

"Because you're eight years older than me," Angie said. "So everything was always your fault, of course. Until you went to college, and then I was the only one left to blame for everything that went wrong."

Eric turned and began pouring himself some coffee. "Let's not talk about Dad."

"Then let's talk about the election. Who are you voting for? Bush or Kerry? I'm voting for Kerry, but I'm betting you're a Bush man."

He chuckled. "A bush man? Well…"

"Get your mind out of the gutter," Angie told him. "Your mind is dirtier than my mouth."

Eric stopped smiling and looked at his sister more seriously. "Listen, Angie, tell me something. What you were just saying a minute ago – is that really how you feel about Tami?"

"I was just giving _you_ a hard time, Eric. I don't really know Tami, to be honest. When you were dating I was in another world entirely. A world full of fairies and unicorns and Nancy Drew. Then you guys went off to college and got married, and I hardly ever saw you. I'm sorry for what I said. Really. I just don't understand why she's getting a master's, and why she got that psychology degree and graduated summa cum laude if she's not going to _do_ anything with all that education."

"She will. She's just waiting for us to get settled."

"Settled?" Angie asked. "Julie's in seventh grade! You have a house and a twelve-year career. I think you're pretty damn settled."

The coffee mug made a click against the counter as Eric set it down. "She's worked on and off part-time since Julie was born. She's kept up her certifications, but it's complicated. We move around a lot. Being a coach…it's not stable. You can get fired anytime. Or just not get your contract renewed. She doesn't want to throw herself heart-first into some full-time career only to have to give it up a year later."

"Well, then next time you don't get your contract renewed as a coach, why don't you just stay on as a teacher?"

He stared at her as he slowly picked up his coffee mug and brought it to his lips. "And _not_ coach?" Sip. Swallow. " _Just_ teach?"

"Sure, why not?" Angie reasoned. "Then Tami could stick with one job in one place and grow her career."

"That's like asking him not to breathe," Tami said. They were both turned somewhat inward as they spoke and hadn't seen her enter around the corner.

Angie blushed and looked down. Startled, Eric jumped a little and spilled hot coffee on his hand, cursed, set down the cup, and began running his hand under the cold water in the kitchen sink.

"In case you're wondering how much I overheard," Tami said, glancing at her sister-in-law, "just starting with the part about me not doing not doing anything with my education."

Angie swallowed. "Tami, I—"

"No, Angie, don't apologize," Tami said as she poured herself some coffee. She replaced the pot and shot Angie her sweetest, brightest, fakest smile. "Eric and I really appreciate your marriage advice, seeing as you're twenty-six and no doubt possessed of great wisdom, and all we know about marriage is the thirteen years we've spent living it."

Eric turned off the water and coughed into his hand.

"Well, I wasn't really offering any _marriage_ advice," Angie said.

Tami blew on her coffee, which she held with two hands. "Mhmm…" she said, "See, the work/family balance is a central issue in any marriage, and it's a delicate balance that's achieved differently for every couple. It's not a challenge you can even begin to appreciate until you've been married for a few years."

Eric turned his watch toward himself and said, loudly, "Wow, look at that! I really need to get to work! I've got to finish up some lesson plans before first period." He strode to the kitchen table where he grabbed his duffle bag and cap. When he turned around, he almost ran into Julie, who, now dressed, was re-entering the breakfast nook.

"In a hurry, Dad?" she asked.

"Just thought I'd head out early. Grab your backpack." The junior high started thirty minutes before the high school, so he often dropped her on his way to work.

"I'm not allowed in the building before 7:30."

"We'll stop at the donut shop, then. I haven't had a daddy-daughter date in a long time."

Julie smiled. "Okay then."

As Eric and Julie and left, Angie and Tami both hollered, "Bye!" from the kitchen, but the false smiles on their faces faded the second the front door shut.


	6. Chapter 6

"Honestly, I'm not quite the sanctimonious bitch you think I am," Angie said.

Tami took down another mug and poured Angie a cup. "Maybe we should get to know each other better." She handed Angie the mug. "It's not organic but I'm sure you can choke it down."

Angie followed Tami to the kitchen table, where they sat down across from one another like two boxers taking their place in their respective corners. Tami just looked at Angie for a minute and then said, "Your brother loves you, so you and I _are_ going to get along."

"But _you_ don't like me," Angie said deliberately.

"Maybe it's more that I don't _know_ you."

 **[*]**

"Were Aunt Angie and Mom fighting this morning?" Julie asked as she opened her miniature milk carton and shoved a straw in it. Before her rested a chocolate éclair and a powdered donut. Tami would scold Eric if she knew he let her have both, but there were benefits to Donuts with Dad.

He had two sausage and egg muffin sandwiches, after all, and a steaming cup of coffee before him. "Nah," he said, and bit into his first breakfast sandwich.

"Kind of sounded like they were." Julie ripped off a piece of éclair. "Do they hate each other?" She took a bite.

Eric swallowed. "No, they don't hate each other. They like each other fine."

"How come I haven't seen Aunt Angie since I was like six?"

"She was away at college, and then she was in Lithuania."

"Latvia," Julie corrected him. "How come we never see grandpa?"

"He was just at dinner last Thanksgiving."

"The Thanksgiving _before_ last," she said.

"He's busy with his job and he lives all the way in Houston."

The truth was, Eric didn't like seeing his father. The man was polite enough to Tami, but he seemed to have little interest in her as an individual. He gave Julie generous gifts, but he wasn't the type of grandfather to get down on his knees on the floor and play with his grandkids. Whenever he could manage to corner Eric alone, he often had something critical to say about what Eric should have – but had not – accomplished. Eric's father had kept in excellent health, worked out an hour a day, and insisted he could outrun and out-throw Eric, who had "let himself grow soft in adulthood." What was more, sometime in the last decade, the man had begun dating women who weren't all that much older than Tami. Eric didn't want to hear about any of them, and he certainly didn't want to meet them.

"I like Aunt Angie," Julie told him. "She's interesting. She's seen so much of the world already. I want to take a gap year and backpack across Europe like she did."

"No," Eric said. "It's not a good idea to take off a year in the middle of college. You might get out of the habit of studying."

"Aunt Angie graduated toward the top of her class."

Eric was about to say, "But she's smart," when he realized that would imply Julie wasn't. Julie _was_ smart. But there was something freakish about Angie's intelligence.

His little sister had skipped fifth grade and then later eighth grade. But between the year she took off between high school and college and the year she took off in the middle of college, and the fact that she'd changed her major twice, she hadn't graduated from NYU until she was 22.

Their father was furious Angie hadn't put that brain of hers to "better use." He'd told Eric, almost every time they talked on the phone, sooner or later, "You should have been in the NFL, and Angie should have been a surgeon." Angie should know what it felt like to be told she wasn't "doing anything" with her education. How could she say such a thing to Tami? Eric was suddenly annoyed with his sister and wondered if she and Tami were working things out or building bigger walls between each other.

He didn't want to think about the possibilities. "What's your favorite subject in school this year?" he asked Julie.

"How long is Aunt Angie staying?"

"I don't know," he answered, realizing for the first time that she hadn't actually said. He supposed he should ask. Surely she didn't plan to stay with them until she left for Africa in three months, but he supposed she didn't have a home anywhere. After all, she'd been out of the country for three years, and it wasn't as if she owned a house anywhere.

"I hope she stays a while." Julie tore off another piece of éclair. "She's totally cool."

"Your mother is pretty cool, too."

Julie's eyebrow shot up. "Mom?"

"Sure. You should tell her sometime."

Julie laughed.

 **[*]**

"You're right, we don't know each other," Angie told Tami.

Most of Tami's memories of Angie were as a fourth grader. One in particular stuck in her mind. Tami and Eric were sitting on the couch in his basement in November of their senior year. The room was completely dark except for the glow of the television screen. Eric had asked her to "help him study" for a government test. She suspected he might have an ulterior motive, given that he had an A- in the class and she had a C+. (Tami had never bothered to study or do homework, being too busy as senior class president and Homecoming Queen and Mo's girlfriend.) She was ready to make out with Eric. She'd just broken up with Mo for cheating on her, and some petty, vengeful part of her hoped to hurt him by getting it on with one of his football buddies. She didn't know Eric well, as he was new to the school that year, but he was easy on the eyes and seemed interested in her. So when they wrapped up their study session and he asked her to stay and watch a TV show with him, she was expecting him to make his move. But for the next twenty minutes he just sat beside her, his shoulder an inch away from hers.

At long last he extended his arm cautiously across the back of the couch, but he still didn't lower it around her. So Tami deliberately laughed at something on the TV and patted his knee and leaned up against him – a hint of encouragement – and finally, finally – _what was taking him so long?_ – Eric leaned down to kiss her. Just as their lips touched – and Tami felt a jolt of chemistry she had not at all anticipated - Angie appeared abruptly behind the couch and asked loudly, "Do y'all want some Oreos?" She held a half full package in her hand.

Eric had not received his baby sister's love offering kindly, but Tami was in tears from laughter after he chased Angie up the stairs.

Tami now looked across the table at Angie. "Maybe it's time we got to know each other."


	7. Chapter 7

"The truth is," Angie said, almost a little sadly, "I don't even know Eric all that well. We stay in touch, but we haven't _seen_ each other since he came to my college graduation in New York."

Tami hadn't made the graduation ceremony because Julie had come down with a bad case of the flu, and so she'd sent Eric to New York on his own. She'd been half afraid Eric would get lost in the big city, wandering around stunned and confused, like a communist in a free world supermarket. But he'd had little to say about his adventure, other than that he didn't like the crowded streets, the panhandlers, or the fact that women looked at him like he was crazy when he said good afternoon.

"I guess it's hard staying close," Tami said, "with such an age difference."

"Yeah," Angie agreed. "We're more like equals now, but when we were kids, Eric was like my second parent. Especially after Mom died and Mark left for college and then Dad was working all the time."

"Eric was always older than his years," Tami said. She'd been half joking when she told him she thought he was the black sheep of the family. Eric was the dependable son, deferential, clean-cut, and with his nose-to-the-grindstone. Even so, he felt like he was his father's least favorite: the middle child who had neither the extreme intelligence of his sister nor the spectacular athleticism of his brother, the disappointment who had not made it to the NFL as Mark most certainly would have done. "I think that's what attracted me to him. That he was so mature for his age."

Tami had primarily started dating Eric to avenge herself against Mo, but she found she enjoyed his company, his goofy sense of humor, the soft feel of his lips on hers, and especially the respectful way he treated her. Dating Eric was so different from dating Mo. He proceeded always with caution, unlike Mo, who had made her play defense. Eric was quiet, introspective, and shyer than she had imagined. His confidence on the football field had mislead her to expect his confidence in relationships. He was relatively new to the school; admired yet little known. Although not the legend his older brother had apparently been in high school and college, Eric played well and early on earned the attention of rally girls and cheerleaders. However, he seemed clueless when it came to handling their advances. He didn't know how to rebuff the girls who did not interest him. He agreed to multiple dates with several different girls, who ended up feuding with one another, until he told them all, much to Tami's surprise, that he was going steady with _her_. At this point, they had only been on two official dates.

Word reached her one Friday through the school grapevine. "Kimberley told me you told her we're going steady," she said to him that night after the game, the last of the season. She looked at him over the banana split they were sharing, which sat on the peeling green table of a local ice cream shop. "And Donna said you told her the same thing. _And_ Jessica."

Eric's eyes flitted to the left and then the right. He licked his spoon and then rested it on his napkin. "Uh….well…I like you. A lot."

"What if _I_ don't _want_ to go steady with you?"

"Uh…" He looked down at the dwindling mountain of whip cream on the second scoop of ice cream. "Sorry. Guess I shouldn't have said that."

"Without even _asking_ me? No, you shouldn't have."

"Sorry," he said again, looking up, concern flickering like one of the colors in the beautiful hazel medley of his eyes. She smiled. God he was cute. No wonder so many girls wanted to date him, even if he was a bit socially awkward. And if Mo saw her wearing the state ring Eric had won his junior year at his old school, he'd probably pop a vein. Mo had never won a state championship. Their high school team had never even made it to state. Her eyes fell to the ring on Eric's finger, a ring coveted by every player on the high school football team, but worn only by him. "I'll go steady with you," she said, "but I'm going to need some collateral."

A few weeks later, about the same time Tami realized she was falling in love with Eric Taylor, he realized she'd been using him to get back at Mo. In a storm of anger, he broke up with her in the parking lot of their high school, telling her to "keep the damn ring, since it clearly means more to you than I ever did." She apologized and begged him to understand that although she might have had selfish motives in the beginning, she'd been confused and badly hurt by Mo, and she'd since fallen for Eric. "I've never _not_ liked you," she swore, "and now I think I love you." She took the ring off the chain around her neck and pressed it into his palm, insisting, "I don't want the ring, I want you."

He thrust the ring in his pocket, grimaced, and said, "I've been a damn fool" before jumping into his old, hideously orange, 1969 Chevy pick-up with the dented tail. She tried to stop him by planting herself in front of the truck, but he just reversed through an empty parking spot.

She continued to plea with him, in the hallways of school and on his answering machine at home, not thinking that his little sister might be listening to the messages and laughing, or that his father might be hearing them and frowning. Eric sulked and ignored her for the next two weeks, until she finally got tired of groveling and decided to move on. She agreed to go to the Valentine's Dance with Johnny Miller, a blonde-harried, blue-eyed lean sophomore who had been the quarterback on the JV team and would likely take Eric's place on varsity next fall when he left for college.

Eric showed up a half hour into the dance, alone, and prowled around the perimeter of the gym. When Tami began her second slow dance with Johnny, Eric broke in, muttering, "Hey, that's _my_ girlfriend you've got your hands all over, JV. Go dance with a girl your own age." Johnny looked at Eric, looked at Tami, looked back at Eric, and shrugged. Then he went off and asked another girl to dance.

"But then again Eric can also be such a childish little boy sometimes," Tami told Angie with a chuckle.

Angie smiled.

"You know, I want you to understand something," Tami said. "Your brother and I may have chosen somewhat traditional roles in our relationship, but that does _not_ mean we aren't equal partners."

"I get that."

"Do you?"

"Sort of," Angie admitted. "I just can't see doing it myself, you know? I didn't have a mom growing up. She died when I was two. And my father raised me to be very independent, which I guess is weird, because you think he'd be just the sort of man to love a woman waiting on him. And, sure, he expected me to do a lot of domestic chores, but he expected it of Eric too, and of himself. He ran that house like we were all sailors on a ship, all hands on deck."

"He did always seem a bit strict to me."

Tami was putting it mildly. When she first met Mr. Taylor, she considered him to be a demanding single father who had the self-confident poise of an old west gunslinger. He seemed to believe children should not speak unless spoken to, and he had high expectations for his, though he never raised a hand to them and was an able provider. Although he had no college education, Mr. Taylor had worked himself up to a managerial position in the oil industry, and his job had him moving from oil town to oil town, which was what had brought Eric to her neck of the woods. Mr. Taylor was now some kind of executive at his company, and his fat wallet, along with his Gregory Peck voice and his Cary Grant looks, had younger women flocking to him, even though he was about the most aloof person Tami had ever met – not shy, as Eric had once been, but standoffish. Some women liked that, too, apparently. The man hadn't dated as long as Angie was under his roof, at least not that he'd told either of his living children, but after she went to college, he began parading a new girlfriend at every family get together, which never failed to make Tami uncomfortable and Eric grouchy. Eric called him on his birthday and on holidays, but they hadn't actually seen the man in almost two years.

"My father wanted me to be a doctor," Angie said. " _Expected_ I would be. And I meant to become one, but in college I think I found myself, who I am – apart from my father, apart from my big brother. And I just got caught up with this passion to help the poor. But that doesn't mean I think I'm better than anyone else. I understand people are different. It takes all kinds to make a world." She picked up her coffee cup but then put it down again without sipping. "Is coaching really _that_ important to Eric? Like breathing?"

"Of course it is."

"I mean, I know he played ball in high school and college, but I always thought that was because Dad pushed him to do it. I always thought if Dad would just let him find his own way, Eric would do something else."

"What do you mean?" Tami was earnestly puzzled. "Eric's _always_ loved football."

Angie shrugged. "I remember when he was in JV, and I was in first grade, and he and our dad had this huge fight in the backyard. I listened in from the window. Eric was just _yelling_ at our dad."

Tami had never seen Eric raise his voice to his father. He'd always been strangely silent in his father's presence. "What was he yelling?"

"I hate this ridiculous sport! I'm not Mark! I'm not your substitute son. I'm not your goddamn legacy!"

"I knew his Dad pushed him, that he wanted him to get in the NFL, but I didn't think Eric ever played football because of that. Believe me, he _loves_ that game."

"He was really into public speaking for a while," Angie said. "He could be shy as hell sometimes back then, but he liked to give speeches. He said having a script was completely different than making small talk. He used to be on the forensics team until Dad told him he couldn't do both that _and_ succeed at football. He basically made Eric quit."

"He told me about that." That spring night Tami had lain naked in his arms for the first time, and he'd told her so many things. "I encouraged him to get back into it in college, but he didn't feel like he had the time. He did take one college speech class, though." It certainly had given him a talent for locker room pep talks and banquet speeches.

"Yeah, well, so you know he had other interests besides just football. So I thought when he wasn't able to go pro, and Dad gave up on him ever succeeding at football, Eric would move on to something else. I didn't think he'd start coaching right after college and make it a life-long career. I didn't know he was _that_ into football."

Tami laughed and shook her head. "Your brother could not possibly be more into it."

"But why?" Angie asked. "It's just football."

"Oh, don't ever say that to him." Tami explained to Angie just how much coaching meant to Eric. "He's already molded a number of young boys. Eric doesn't just build their skills, he builds their characters. He does really good work, Angie. As good as…Never mind."

"Anything I do? You know, I realize there are different ways to serve others. I do. And what you're doing for my brother…it's pretty great. If coaching really means that much to him, and if it means that much to those boys he's coaching, well, then…they're all pretty damn lucky to have you supporting him the way you do. Julie's lucky too. And I'm sorry you and I got off to a bad start."

Tami smiled. "Me, too." She raised her cup to her lips and smiled. "But we could always try starting over."


	8. Chapter 8

"Taylor, what is she doing here?" Coach Peterson motioned to the stands where Angie sat watching.

"I don't know, sir, I think she just wanted to see me coach."

"Coaching is not a spectator sport, Eric. And you _see_ what she's doing to the team." As a widely grinning freshman jogged by, he shouted, "Stop looking at the stands, Riggins! Finish your laps! You'll never make varsity at this rate!"

Eric knew the Coach was moving Riggins up next year, regardless of what he said now. That kid was a machine. Eric thought he should have been put on varsity this year.

Coach Peterson turned his attention back to Coach Taylor. "You need to take care of that. Now."

"Yes, sir," Eric muttered.

The bleachers creaked as Coach Taylor walked up five steps and slid in on the bench next to his sister. "What are you doing here?"

"Just wanted to see you in your element. Tami explained to me how much all this," she gestured around the field, "meant to you. I had no idea. Honest. Sorry if I've made fun."

"If?"

"I'm sorry," she said, "I was wrong. I apol—"

"—A'ight, a'ight. Cut it out. I appreciate you came out to see what I do, but you really need to move along now."

"Why?"

"Because you're distracting to the team."

She looked out at the team in full gear, some running laps, and some running plays, and said, "Why?"

"Oh, come on, Angie. Don't pretend you don't know how beautiful you are."

"The oldest kid on that team is nine years younger than me."

He snorted. "What's that got to do with reality? I've got a team full of hormonal teenage boys out there. You gotta move along."

"So I take it Tami never comes by to watch practice, then?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, but then he smiled proudly. "She is hot, isn't she?"

"You did all right, for a guy who could barely make eye contact."

"I'm really good at eye contact now," he said. "I can even do the smoldering gaze."

"Probably only with Tami, though."

"No one else is worthy of my smolder."

Angie laughed.

"Seriously, though. She's an amazing woman, Angie. I don't like you not getting along with her."

"We had a good morning together, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I promise," she assured him.

"How long are you staying anyway?"

"How long are you willing to have me?" she asked.

"I take it you don't have some place else to go between here and your Africa thing?"

She smiled and shrugged. "I know it's a lot to ask."

"I'll talk to Tami. It would be nice to have you for Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway." He nodded back to the field, where Coach Peterson was looking peevishly at him, and Tim Riggins was smiling dopishly at Angie. "But you need to get going."

"Okay," she said, standing up from the bleachers. "Okay. You know I have to go hug a tree anyway."

 **[*]**

"You and Angie make up?" Eric asked when he stepped out of the shower, now free from the grit of practice, and found Tami fixing her makeup. That, coupled with the fact that he had not smelled anything cooking when he came home, led him to believe she was expecting a family dinner out.

She glanced at him in the mirror, her eyes doing a quick scan up and down.

"Like what you see?" he asked, flexing a muscle.

She chuckled. "You're a goofball," she told him. She _did_ like what she saw. She enjoyed her husband's body, but she was in no mood for sex at the moment. "Get dressed."

He grinned. "You _sure_ you want me too?"

"I'm hungry."

He came up behind her, put a hand on each of her hips, and kissed the side of her neck. A bit of water dripped from his hair onto her shoulder. "So am I," he murmured.

She squirmed away. "You're getting me wet. And your daughter and sister are waiting for us. We're going out to eat."

"Applebee's?" he asked as he grabbed a towel off the rack.

"Where else? Unless we want to drive ten miles to the Italian place."

He stepped back and began drying off. "So you did make up, right?" He wasn't sure if he could trust his sister's version of events.

"You're sister and I are okay," she told him as she applied fresh lipstick. "But I wanted to ask you something."

"What?" He tossed his towel over the shower curtain rod and yanked on his boxers.

She capped her lipstick, turned, and leaned back against the vanity. "You've always loved football, haven't you?"

He pulled on his jeans. "Sure. Since I was an itty bitty thing."

Tami told him what his sister had told her, about her belief that Eric had done only what their father wanted.

"Well," he explained after he slid on his undershirt, "I hated that my dad pushed me so damn much. And I hated that I was supposed to accomplish Mark was going to accomplish before he died."

She followed him out of the bathroom to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. "Go on."

"I hated that football was the **only** thing for my father, you know, the only thing about me." Eric stood before her and pulled a long-sleeved button-down over his undershirt. "But I loved the game itself. I loved the comradery, and the rush, and the…I don't know…that whole sense of becoming better, you know?" Tami nodded as he buttoned his shirt. "And I think I love the coaching even more than I loved the playing. It's just that my dad…" He shook his head. "The man is sixty-nine, and he still wears his state ring from _high school_. He took off his wedding ring two years after my mom died, but he _still_ wears his state ring."

"I know. You told me that night by the lake." He'd also told her he thought his parents had fallen out of love years before she died, that they were both just _punching a clock_ as far as their marriage was concerned, and that his mother might have left him, if she hadn't gotten pregnant with Angie and then a year later found out she had cancer.

He sat down on the bed next to her, and it shifted slightly with his weight. "What night?"

"Our first time."

"You mean our first _time_?"

"Yeah, you remember it?"

"Vaguely."

"Only vaguely?" she asked.

"There's been a lot times since then." He winked and began to button his sleeves.

"So you just didn't like your dad pushing you?"

"I didn't ever want to become like him, where something like a high school victory could mean more to me than my _family_." He looked at her, as though to ask, _I'm not like him, am I?_

She kissed him. "You're a good father and a good husband."

When she pulled away, he studied her eyes. "Listen," he said softly, "I know you've given a lot. Because of the moving, the uncertainty in the contracts…I know what you've done to support me in this career. I hope you're happy with that choice."

"Eric, I'm not going to lie and say it's been easy, or that I've never thought about the what if. What if I had gotten my Ph.D. like I originally planned? What if I hadn't followed you to Macedonia for that first move? But in the end I make my own decisions. I've done what I've done because I love you, it seemed practical, and I wanted to be around for Julie. I understand what coaching means to you." She shrugged. "They say women are most productive in their forties and fifties anyway. Someday it'll be my turn to shine."

"You already shine, babe." He leaned in and kissed her. He rested a hand on her knee, just beneath the hem of her skirt.

Slowly, she ended the kiss and pulled away. "And I _am_ going back to work full-time once you're head coach of the Panthers," she told him. "I'll have finished up my master's by then. I'm almost done."

He nodded. "I love you," he whispered. "You know, if I ever _had_ to choose, between you and football —"

"- I'd never ask you to make that choice, Eric."

"You're first, Tami. In my heart, you're always first, before anything else in this world."

She kissed his earlobe. "You did get some good speech training, didn't you?"

He smiled and began to ease her down on the bed, but she stopped him. "We don't have time for that. I'm hungry."

"So am I. For you."

She pushed him off, kissed the frowning edge of his mouth, and stood. "You already told that joke," she said as she smoothed her skirt, "and it was corny the first time."

He followed her to the bedroom door. "You like corny," he insisted.

[*]

"I haven't been in an Applebee's in a long, long time," Angie said when they sat at their table, Angie and Julie on one side and Tami and Eric on the other.

"Sorry, sis," Eric told her, "Are you used to fine dining in Lithuania? Sparkling water and thick tablecloths?"

"Latvia, Eric. For the hundredth time. And, no…I just…do y'all have any ethnic restaurants in Dillon?"

"We've got plenty of Mexican."

The waiter arrived at the edge of their table. "What can I do you for?" he asked, not taking his eyes off of Angie.

"I hope you're not working late tonight, Joey," Eric told him. "You need to rest up for tomorrow's game."

"I need to make money too, sir. Any of your JV guys going to play tomorrow?"

"Riggins probably. Street, maybe," Eric answered.

"People are saying they might move Street up to varsity next year," Joey replied, "and you might be head coach next season."

"Who's saying?" Tami asked.

Joey looked left and then right. "Coach Peterson was talking to Buddy Garrity about maybe retiring next year instead of in three years, and Mr. Garrity said Coach Taylor ought to replace him."

"Really?" Eric asked.

Joey nodded. "You didn't hear it from me." He looked at Angie and smiled nervously. "What I can I get you, darling?"

Angie shot him a look that told him that, even if he wasn't 17, he'd be aiming way out of his league. "I'll have the bacon cheeseburger."

Julie said, "I'm kind of surprised you aren't a vegetarian, Aunt Angie. I'm thinking of becoming one myself."

"You will do no such thing," Eric told her.

"You can do what you want, Julie," Tami said, "but **I** will **_not_** be preparing separate meals for you."

Eric told Joey, "I'll have the bacon cheeseburger too."

Tami ordered a chicken dish and Julie got a salad. When Joey asked Angie how she'd like her burger cooked, she said, "Medium rare."

"Uh…well…" he said, "we can only do it medium?"

"Is that a question?" Angie asked.

"No." Joey put his pencil in his hair and scratched his head with it. "It's a…it was supposed to be a statement. It's Applebee's policy now. Someone got sick or something…"

"I thought this was Texas," Angie said. "What happened since I've been gone? Did a herd of New York lawyers move in?"

Eric chuckled.

"So medium then?" Joey asked.

"As red as you can legally make it," Angie replied, and Eric echoed, "Mine, too" before Joey scurried away.

"So you're angling to be the big fish in a big pond, huh?" Angie asked her brother.

Tami raised her wine glass. "That has always been our long term goal."

"Although we shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch," Eric said. "It's good to know Buddy's in my camp, but there's still at least two other coaches in the running. And maybe Peterson won't retire. So in the meantime…"

"Head down and hand to the plow," Angie finished for him. "Like Dad used to say."

"Still says." Eric took the paper ring off his napkin. "When was the last time you talked to him?"

"Hmmm…I think it was when I graduated from college with distinction and he said, 'It should have been with _high_ distinction.' Or, no, wait. It was when I called to tell him I was joining the Peace Corps and he said, 'Why are you wasting the fifteen thousand I contributed to your college tuition to hang out with a bunch of hippie losers?' Or, no, no, that wasn't it. It was when I called him last week to tell him I was getting married and he said, 'Who would marry you?'"

"That's awful!" Julie muttered. "Is that why we never visit grandpa?"

"Pretty much," Eric said. He was unrolling his napkin. "Wait." The silverware cluttered to the table. "You're getting _married_?"


	9. Chapter 9

"Why did she tell my Dad before she told me?" Eric was standing two feet from the bed in which Tami sat brushing her hair. She was wearing a blue Panthers t-shirt and a pair of gray sweat pants. He'd asked her a month ago why she never wore lingerie to bed and she's countered, "Well, maybe when you stop wearing those ratty t-shirts." The one he had on now, atop his checkered boxers, had a rip under the arm.

"Hon, I think she wanted to tell you in person. That's probably partly why she's **here**." This was a strange reversal of roles, Tami defending Angela to Eric.

His fingers clawed their way into his hair. "Why did she just drop the bomb like that, at dinner?"

"I couldn't tell you," Tami said. "Maybe she thought you couldn't react in the high strung way your acting now if you were in public."

"He probably just wants American citizenship. I mean, who wants to live in Lithuania?"

"I'm sure a lot of Lithuanian's do, sugar. But her fiancé is Latvian."

"And he's _my_ age!"

"You're not ancient." She pulled her brush one more time through her hair. She liked to do a hundred strokes before bed. She'd read somewhere that it kept your hair shiny. "You're still kind of cute, actually. And I've only counted six strands of gray."

"What?" he asked and walked to the mirror over the dresser and began examining his hair. She laughed.

"Well you're the one giving them to me," he said and then flopped down in the bed on his side next to her.

"You give them to yourself. You _let_ yourself get worked up. About everything."

"Unlike you, right?" he asked. "Who never freaks out when Julie gets assigned the _wrong_ teacher and who doesn't stay up all night writing e-mails to the school."

Tami pointed the brush at him. "Hey, she's in a much better math class now. This is going to make a difference down the road, and when she takes her PSATs-"

"—Uh huh. It's good to know you never get worked up." He scooted closer, put a hand on her hip, and looked up at her. "You're worried about a test. I'm worried about the lifelong happiness of my flesh-and-blood sister."

"And I'm worried about the lifelong success of _our_ flesh-and-blood _daughter_."

He let out a strangled sound and rolled on his back. She smiled. "Fine. We can both be a little absurd sometimes," she admitted. "Because we care about family." She put her brush on the night stand, slid under the covers, and snuggled up. "I'm glad I married a family man."

Eric stroked her hair. "Neither of us had the best family lives growing up. I think we've both worked to change that." She murmured her agreement. His chest rose and fell with his sigh. "She's known this guy for six months," he muttered. "Six months."

"You proposed after we'd only been dating for eight months."

"Sure," he said. "But you had the sense to say no. I mean, this guy. Who is this guy?"

"He's a doctor," Tami said. "You heard her."

"She picked him up in a bar," he grumbled.

"They _met_ in a bar. She didn't _pick him up_."

"Why are you defending her?"

"Because I think a woman ought to be trusted to choose who she marries. You know how upset my mother was that I was dating a Jewish boy."

"Who?" Eric asked.

"You."

"I'm not Jewish."

"No, but she thought you were, because your family never went to church and your father's name is Abraham."

"So was Abe Lincoln's," Eric muttered.

"Well, you know my mom. I didn't get my brains from _her_." Tami liked to believe she'd gotten a lot of things from her father, even though she'd hardly known the man, since he'd gone off to Vietnam when her mother was still pregnant with Shelley and died three months later. Tami and Eric were both the children of single parents, and it was one of the things they had bonded over early on. There were plenty of kids from divorced or unwed homes among their small town peers, but not many who had lived through a parent's death.

"How long did she think I was Jewish?"

"I think she still does. She just thinks you converted for me."

Eric shook his head. He lay there for a while, looking up at the ceiling. "I didn't even know she was dating anyone. Isn't it weird she didn't even mention it?"

"The last time you talked was the week before they started dating."

"Yeah, but she could have said it in one of her letters or e-mails."

Tami could see why Angie might not have, especially since she didn't know it was going to be serious.

"Six months!" Eric exclaimed.

"Well, she's not a teenager, Eric. She's twenty-six. She probably knows what she's looking for in a man by now." Tami actually thought six months was a bit fast, too, but her role right now was to calm Eric down.

"This is just what I need to be thinking about with Jason maybe playing in the game tomorrow. She couldn't have waited one more day to tell me?"

"First you complain she doesn't tell you soon enough, then that she tells you too soon." Tami kissed his cheek, rolled over, and turned off the light. "Night, babe. Get yourself a shot of whisky if you're not asleep in thirty minutes. And maybe some Benadryl."


	10. Chapter 10

Eric knew Tami was joking about the whiskey and Benadryll, but he did fetch himself a beer before settling into his recliner in the living room. Angie apparently wasn't sleeping either. She was sitting on the couch, her feet up on the coffee table, surfing channels on the TV.

"A New Year's day wedding," Eric grumbled. "Isn't that a bit much? Won't New York be insanely crowded then?" Angie and Nikolajas were planning to marry in New York city, since he apparently had a brother and sister-in-law who lived there and that's where most of Angie's old college friends still lived. They were going to honeymoon for three nights in Cape Cod, and then stay with Nikolajas's brother in New York for another week before heading onto Nambia with Doctors Without Borders.

"At least we're not having it on New Year's _Eve._ "

"It's still going to be crazy crowded."

"Well, you know what, Eric? You can just not go then, if you don't want to fight the crowds."

Eric blinked, a little surprised by the edge in her voice. "Well who's going to give you away if I'm not there?"

"Uh…Dad. Even if you _are_ there. That's kind of his job."

"Oh. I didn't think you wanted him to come after what he said to you."

Angie shrugged. "He's the only father I've got. You work with what you're given. Besides, it may be the last time I'll see him before he dies."

"Dad's not dying anytime soon. He's going to outlive us both."

"No. One of those buxom forty year olds is going to give him a heart attack in bed."

Eric extended his finger and shook it in her direction. "Don't talk about that."

"What if he marries one and they have a kid? We could have another sibling."

"That's not going to happen."

Angie pulled her legs up on the couch and crossed them under herself. "How do you know it's not?"

"Because he hasn't been married for a long, long time. He's set in his ways."

"Would you remarry if Tami died?" she asked him.

"Tami is going to outlive me," he insisted. He looked at the TV screen. Angie had come to pause on a documentary on schools in Africa. It reminded him that in a short time, Angie would be married and gone across the world, slipped out of his life again just as quickly as she'd slipped back in.

"But if she _did_ die," Angie asked, "how long do you think it would take you to remarry?"

"Tami tells me she's the only woman who would tolerate me."

Angela snorted. "I bet they'd be lining up for the hot widower. You just wouldn't know what to do with them." She switched off the T.V. "So…it's clear you don't like that I'm getting married."

Eric scratched his head. "I just...I don't know this guy."

"Yeah, but I know him. And you know me. Don't you trust my good sense?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"No, it's not a trick question!" she said defensively. "Oh." Her voice grew dull. "You're just like dad. You think I've wasted my talent doing service work. That I'm being reckless, going off to Africa. That I'm just a silly do-gooder."

"I never said that. I never said anything like that."

"But do you think it?" she asked.

"Nah," he said. "Look, we're different. You and me."

She smiled. "That's an understatement."

"But that doesn't mean I don't respect you. But…you remember Milton Sanderson?"

"This is why I've never told you about any of my boyfriends, Eric. I make one less than perfect pick, when I'm seventeen, and I never hear the end of it."

"Less than _perfect_?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. "He committed armed robbery."

"Yeah, but you would have forgiven him that if he wasn't a Redskins fan."

Eric shook his head. "Why did you ever date that guy?"

"It's not like he was a felon when I _started_ dating him. That happened a year after we broke up."

"Yeah," Eric conceded. "But he _was_ a loser. Why'd you go out with him?"

"Honestly? Mostly to piss off Dad."

"Ah." He drummed his fingers on the recliner. "I hope that's not why you're marrying Nick."

"Don't call him Nick. He doesn't like Nick. And I've already succeeded in pissing off Dad by not going on to med school and not becoming a surgeon who makes six-figures a year. By going to Africa to _play nurse_ as he calls it."

Eric sighed and sipped his beer. "You know he still thinks I should have made it to the NFL? That if I had just...I don't know. Not been such a screw up. Not been...not-Mark."

"You ever wonder how we turned out to be the awesome people we are?"

Eric smiled. "I know how I did. Tami."

"Nah, you were pretty awesome before Tami. She just sanded off your less-than-awesome edges and shined you up a bit to bring out some of the hidden awesomeness."

"And you?" he asked, resting his beer bottle on his upper leg.

"Well, I had the benefit of a pretty awesome big brother, at least until you married Tami and forgot I existed."

"I didn't forget you existed. I called every week. We were there a couple of Thanksgivings. That one Christmas."

"Yeah, I know...but I missed you. Once you two got married..." She shrugged casually.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I should have visited more when you were still in high school."

"I can't really blame you. It's not as if I ever looked back once I got out that door. You know I haven't seen Dad since I graduated from college."

"Well," Eric reminded her. "You haven't seen me since you graduated from college either."

"Yeah, but you e-mail. And I'm here right now, aren't I?"

He nodded. "And I'm glad you are." He took a slow swig of his beer. "But I'm going to have to vet this Nick fellow before the wedding."

Angie rolled her eyes.

By the time Eric got to bed, he'd had three beers in rather quick succession. He nudged Tami awake. "Want to fool around."

She pulled her head back. "You smell like beer."

"I'll brush my teeth." He slid out of bed, but when he came back, she was asleep. He nibbled her ear until she woke up, swatting him. "See?" he asked, kissing her lips. "Minty fresh."

"I was asleep," she muttered.

"I've got a game tomorrow, babe. You know you always help me relax before games."

"Hon, can you even get it up right now?"

"I didn't drink _that_ much."

She rolled onto her side and slung a leg over his leg. He grinned and pressed against her. "Fine," she said. "But don't be upset if I fall asleep halfway through."

"Never mind."

She made a sympathetic sound, kissed his cheek, and muttered, "I'm sorry. Try me in the morning."

He hrmphed and rolled onto his other side, but his resentment didn't last long, as he was asleep thirty seconds later.


	11. Chapter 11

_**A/N**_ : I apologize for the abrupt wrap-up, but I've been distracted from writing this piece and don't know if/when I'll be inspired to develop it, and I didn't want to keep it hanging unfinished for months. I hope you enjoyed it despite the rough conclusion!

 **[*]**

November was a month of catching up, and Eric cherished his time with his sister, knowing that she would soon be married and on another continent. He enjoyed having her watch his games, join them for Thanksgiving, and tease him about his lack of driving skills during an unexpected snow the second week of December. "For Texans," she said, "snow is like liquid stupid falling from the sky."

"First of all," he told her, "snow is not a liquid, and second – don't you consider yourself a Texan anymore? I mean, you were born and bred here."

"I guess I consider myself a citizen of the world."

Eric met Angela's fiancé for the first time at the rehearsal dinner. He took the man for a drink at the bar after the formalities were done, and found him to be surprisingly serious and taciturn for his sister. They had trouble making conversation.

"I don't get it," Eric told Tami that night in the hotel bed, while Julie snored softly in the next bed over. "Angela's so…I don't know. Full of life, you know? Outgoing. Always trying new things. Adventurous. And he was so…"

"Grounded?" Tami asked. "Isn't that exactly what you want for your sister?"

"I guess," he muttered.

"You know, he's probably just an introvert like you. You can come off a little sullen yourself sometimes."

"Me? Nah. I'm all charm all the time, babe."

She chuckled and kissed his nose. "And he can't be unadventurous either, if he's going with her to Africa."

Eric rolled on his side and kissed her. "Julie's asleep," he murmured and wiggled his eyebrow.

"Nah uh," she said. "Not with our daughter in the next bed."

[*]

At the wedding, Eric watched his father give his sister away, and at the reception, he found himself defending her.

"So much potential," his father was muttering over his champagne as they stood in a corner of the reception hall. "She could have been a surgeon, and to take up with some impoverished foreigner – "

"- He's a doctor, Dad. He's hardly impoverished."

"Doctors in these countries aren't like doctors in America, son. When he and Angela move back to New York, he won't even be able to practice. He'll probably end up a janitor."

"I don't think that's true, but, even if he did, there's no shame in honest work of any kind."

His father shook his head. He looked around the room. "Have you seen my date?"

Eric had seen her, all right. A forty-three year old in a green, low-cut dress, with strawberry blonde hair a little too much like Tami's. It had made him a bit ill to see his father dance with her.

"Can I get dance with my big brother?" Angela asked from behind him, and Eric turned and smiled.

On the dance floor, he grumbled about their father. "Can't believe he brought a date to his own daughter's wedding."

"You're just jealous you can't be running around with younger women," Angela teased.

"Not at all. If I never have to date again a day in my life, it'll be a blessing."

"Tami is a blessing," she said as they whirled past Tami herself, who was dancing with one of their first cousins.

"That she is," Eric agreed, looking at her over Angie's shoulder. She was beautiful in that get-up. Cousin Jeffrey better not get too handsy with her.

"You know, this is goodbye for a few years." Angela's voice drew his attention back.

He looked at her, radiant in her wedding dress. "I know we haven't always been close, but I love you, you know. You're my baby sister."

She smiled. "Thanks, big brother. And thanks for taking me in when I was homeless."

He chuckled. "You weren't exactly homeless."

"It was good to stay with you. To see you o happy, so settled. You've got this stable family and all this love. I want that. But in my own way. My own style. I know you're not sure about Nijolas. And that you're not sure about Africa. But I know what I'm doing. This is right for me."

He nodded. "Okay. Okay. I get that."

"Do you?"

He smiled. "It takes all kinds to make a world."

 **THE END**


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